foursquare

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adjective

four·​square ˈfȯr-ˈskwer 

1

: square

The benchlike frames have foursquare horizontal slats and either dowel-shaped or foursquare uprights.

—Janet Malcom

A magnificent foursquare house built by Col. Jonathan Hamilton on a promontory of the Salmon Falls River overlooking his wharves and warehouses.

—John Deedy

2

: marked by boldness and conviction : forthright

Disillusionment is used to give the antihero glamour and hipness, but then the movie wants him to be a foursquare hero with heart.

—Pauline Kael

… bassist Jeremy Toback and drummer Regan Hagar rarely stray from foursquare hard-rock propulsion.

—Mark Coleman

foursquare adverb

The A.M.A spoke for the great majority of doctors in the years preceding Medicare when it stood foursquare against anything that could even remotely be called socialized medicine.

—Robert Sherrill

four square

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noun

: a children's game for four players in which each player stands in a quadrant of a square court, the server strikes a large ball so that it bounces in the quadrant of another player, the receiving player strikes it to bounce in another quadrant, and so on, with players being eliminated for failing to hit and direct the ball properly

At Grant Elementary School, I played four square with the children of immigrants from the Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, and Lebanon.

—Héctor Tobar

Synonyms

Adjective

• candid
• direct
• forthcoming
• forthright
• frank
• free-spoken
• freehearted
• honest
• open
• openhearted
• out-front
• outspoken
• plain
• plainspoken
• straight
• straightforward
• unguarded
• unreserved
• up-front

Examples of foursquare in a Sentence

Adjective

her foursquare support for the proposal

it's no time to be foursquare if you're asked whether a certain outfit makes a person look fat

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

The first structure was unusual enough to become a local attraction: a large foursquare house with a center hall and verandahs on all sides. —Mark Lamster, Dallas News, 15 Apr. 2020

This is an earnest, foursquare, if extremely well-made, melodrama. —Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 16 Mar. 2020

The foursquare drill is meant to hone pitchers’ reaction time fielding comebackers and making awkward throws. —Henry Schulman, SFChronicle.com, 16 Feb. 2020

From today’s viewpoint, its most familiar American manifestations were possibly the comfortably foursquare domestic architecture and furnishing designs produced by Gustav Stickley in the early 20th century. —Barrymore Laurence Scherer, WSJ, 28 Nov. 2018

Oddly enough, these statements are foursquare at odds with these legislators’ voting records. —Deroy Murdock, National Review, 11 Dec. 2017

Word History

First Known Use

Adjective

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun

1955, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

foursquare

adjective

four·​square ˈfōr-ˈskwa(ə)r 

-ˈskwe(ə)r,

ˈfȯr-

1

: square entry 2 sense 1a

2

: marked by boldness and firmness : forthright

foursquare adverb